Coining new terms - when do we go too far?

Using 'spim' to refer to instant message spam.

Senior Member

joined:Feb 20, 2002
posts:1716
votes: 0

I classify myself as a writer, so I know how important it is to make things punchy and interesting. It's important to use words that attract attention, that people can relate to, and that are both creative and descriptive (without being too flip or jargon-y).

So as a writer, I bristle when it seems like someone coins a new term just because they can.

An article [washingtonpost.com] at the Washington Post website is using the word "spim" to refer to spam that is sent via instant messaging.

They don't claim to have coined the term - but in the article, the word "spim" is used interchangably with the phrase "instant messaging spam."

We don't use "spasem" to differentiate search engine spamming ... the word "spam" seems to be descriptive enough. I hope "spim" never catches on.

Junior Member

joined:Sept 21, 2002
posts:113
votes: 0

Here in Denmark we are very influenced by both British English and American English via film and TV. We have a lot of words in English that just got incorporated at some point ('weekends', 'TV' etc) and are just used with a Danish pronounciation.

But we also have some words that are 'directly' ie badly translated. My pet peeve is 'role model' which is translated into 'rollemodel'. This doesn't actually make any sense in Danish, it sounds like a supermodel playing a part in a film. And there already was a perfectly good word in Danish that means 'role model' ('forbillede'). I imagine that some idiot at some point couldn't think of the word in Danish and just 'translated' it and it became common use.

Oh, I'm going to become one of those old ladies that write letters to the newspapers complaining about the state of young people's language today...

I do realize that language is ever changing, but like Hawkgirl said, what's the point of making up a new word if one already exists? I think the media is trying to be 'young' and 'fresh' but ends up looking really stupid and wanna-be.